Search form

South Asia

South Asia is home to well over one fifth of the world's population, making it both the most populous and most densely populated geographical region in the world. This region of the world is also home to a diverse group of global challenges, conflict and fragile states. Security concerns, both domestic and international, have led some South Asian states to foster extremist movements in their own backyards. The challenge in South Asia has been not simply postconflict peacekeeping but also more ambitious efforts to build domestic institutions of law and governance. A growing array of international groups and organizations are now devoted to state building, and scholarly organizations like CIC are slowly developing a body of knowledge on its theory and practice. CIC has helped to illuminate these peacebuilding efforts by looking at the ideas that inform the actions of international agencies as they engage Member States in the region.

Related Publications

President Obama has announced that the U.S, will maintain 8,400 troops in Afghanistan until the end of his term. The international military presence does not only affect the balance of forces between the government and the Taliban insurgency based in Pakistan.

Few if any Taliban leaders say they want to re-establish the Islamic Emirate or revive the policies that drew the world’s opprobrium upon them when they controlled the Afghan state in the 1990s.That is the conclusion drawn in this report by Borhan Osman of the Afghanistan Analysts Network and Anand Gopal, author of No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes from interviews with members of the Taliban’s political wing and analysis of the movement’s official publications.

In 1996, the Taliban movement, a majority of who were religious students from Deobandi madrasas (religious schools) in Pakistan and rural Afghanistan, established a short-lived Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. On arrival in Kabul, the Taliban barred women from working at public or private institutions and banned girls from schools. The Taliban regime said that the ban was because of a lack of facilities and security.